


Boars Not Welcomed Here

by Loudest_Voice



Series: Fire Emblem: 3H fics [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Falling out, Fantasy Chivalry, Felix Being in Denial, Hunting, Letters, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sylvain Being Serious, Uncomfortable Family Resemblance, Unsubtle symbolism, felix POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 16:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21059750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: The one where everyone knows Felix and Dimitri are in love, except of course for Felix and Dimitri.





	Boars Not Welcomed Here

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta reading this. I tinkered while posting so any mistakes are my own.
> 
> I consider it a point of pride that I got only slightly sidetracked while writing this.

The Dukedom of Fraldarius prepares for Crown Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd's visit as though Saint Seiros herself is about to descend from the clouds and bestow them with a thousand year's worth of riches. It makes Felix want to vomit. He wishes he could do it at will just to deposit his disgust at his father's feet. 

"Do you think His Highness would prefer wine or beer?" asks Duke Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, anxiously.

Like, _actually_ anxious, as a bride before her wedding night. Felix stares as his father inspects a bottle of aged alcohol, probably taken from the Fraldarius coffers, grey eyes wide. 

"He's sixteen," says Felix. And also just _Dimitri_. "Also, he's too much of a beast to appreciate food, or drink, or anything but senseless bloodshed."

Rodrigue's eyebrows furrow, but he doesn't even bother to look at Felix, and instead turns to the servant. "Perhaps His Highness is still a bit young for a full bottle of wine, and it would be a terrible waste to open one of these for someone who could not finish it."

"I didn't say he wouldn't be _able_ to finish it," says Felix, unhappy at being ignored. "Just that the damned boar can’t tell fine wine from warm piss."

"I know!" says Rodrigue. "Slaughter one of the cows. We'll prepare a meal in the Almyran style to celebrate Dimitri's strength."

Felix groans. Loudly. Then he gets up from the dining table and storms out of the hall without excusing himself. If his father isn't in a mood to argue, then Felix isn't in the mood to hear him titter about fucking _Dimitri_, of all people. He'd rather practice his swordplay until he can't rotate his elbow without wincing. The next month will be a nightmare. Felix would love nothing more than to personally dismember whoever thought it would be a good idea for the Crown Prince to spend the first moon of his sixteenth year at Fraldarius. Felix will not survive the month without killing either Dimitri, his father, or himself. Or all three of them.

He goes to the training grounds, planning to exhaust his pointless rage against some stupid mannequin, and finds a handful of Sir Giles’ squires. That old bastard is a friend of his father’s, who’s more concerned with politics than with skill. Hence why he accepts every idiot some far-off noble sends his way as a squire, because if someone can’t inherit property, they might as well become a knight. Right? 

So Felix goes through drills alone, all but snarling at anyone who dares to approach him, until sweat runs down his back despite the cooling winds of late fall. It doesn't erase the image of Dimitri culling the western rebellion: covered in blood and cutting through lines of insurgents (malnourished villagers, really) like a wild boar. Felix might have lived with the brutality, if only Dimitri hadn't looked so _gleeful_ in the midst of the screams. Even worse, the beast had talked as if nothing had happened after. He'd patted Felix's shoulder and had the gall to look hurt when Felix had stumbled a step back, snarling like a cornered rabbit.

It's late by the time he makes it back to his rooms, shoulder and head pulsing with an insistent ache. A whole year has passed since Felix's blade first tasted blood during that rebellion in Faerghus’ western territories. The whole thing had been little more than a bloodbath, which Felix had only been involved with because Glenn is dead and a Fraldarius warrior always follows a Blaiddyd to battle. If not for the Tragedy of Duscur, Felix could have held on to his naive admiration of knights for a few more moons.

The Tragedy of Duscur. His life will forever be divided into a Before and an After centered around Duscur. It took his brother, Glenn, his father, and Dimitri all in one swoop. Felix hadn’t noticed it all at once, which just made him even more bitter at the entire ridiculous, pointless situation. 

Sylvain and Ingrid arrive the next morning with a party of Gautier Knights in tow. Before Duscur, their arrival would have made Felix bubble with excitement. That was Before. Now, it just drops a poisoned stone into his guts. Sylvain's forced jokes and mechanical skirt-chasing makes Felix grit his teeth until his jaw aches. He can barely look at Ingrid, most days, and she can barely look at him. He looks too much like Glenn. Felix avoids Rodrigue and his entourage of sycophant retainers all morning just so he can spare himself the ceremony of welcoming visiting knights to the castle. He grabs his hunting furs and bow, then announces his intention of hunting a wild boar for a welcoming feast. To the kitchen staff. Hopefully, his father will waste some hours looking for him.

About two miles out into Fraldarius lands, he runs into a wild boar. Felix would call it good luck, if the thing didn't have such thin flanks. He downs the beast with a single arrow between its eyes. By the time he reaches the corpse, a pool of bright red blood is pooling around the snow under the boar's head like grotesque halo. Felix stares at it tusks and breathes in the cold winter air. It's going to be a rough winter.

Carrying the carcass back home proves to be a challenge, much to Felix's annoyance. Thin as it looks, it's easily forty pounds of extra weight on Felix's back, down a mountain covered in slippery snow. He almost stumbles a couple of times, and wouldn't that be a riot? What if he broke his neck in a foolish, unnecessary hunting trip? At least Rodrigue wouldn't be able to say that he died a knight's death, or some equally stupid platitude. Felix slows the closer he gets to the castle, and pretends that he's tired. When he spots the castle, he pauses. Then he sets the boar carcass on the ground.

Sylvain and Ingrid have undoubtedly arrived. Rodrigue already apologized on behalf of his miscreant second son and plied them with extra servings of meat, though the prudent thing to do would be to cut back and cure a little extra for the winter. It's not easy to predict how vicious Faerghus' winters will be. Felix bites his lower lip, takes off his gloves, and pulls out a dagger. He could use a break, and the boar will be lighter once it's been eviscerated. 

It doesn't take long to finish pulling out the carcass’ guts, and Felix works slower than normal. He looks for reasons to delay his return while rubbing blood off his hands with the snow, using as little of his drinking water as possible. Maybe he should take the boar for himself and stay out in the mountains. What could be a greater test of his strength than to survive the winter out on his own? Or he could just keep travelling until the winds become warmer and the boars fatter. Or colder. Felix doesn't care. Just anywhere but Faerghus, with all its rotten chivalry.

Felix returns to Castle Fraldarius. Of course he does. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's shame. Maybe he does love his stupid old man, after all. He heads straight to the kitchens to deliver the boar, trying to hold back tears for some unfathomable reason. The kitchen master thanks him profusely for the boar. Felix waves him off with an order to have someone draw him a bath, eager to return to his rooms so he can have a stupid cry in private. Glenn would have called him an idiot crybaby, but with no bite, and Felix would have laughed despite the tears. But Glenn is dead. Dead and gone.

He's so wrapped up in the spiral of his thoughts that he runs face-first into a knight. Or rather, a knight's breastplate.

"What?" Felix snarls, willing the stupid tears away.

"Felix?"

"Who el- " Felix intends to verbally cut down the fool, then he catches sight of wide brown eyes. "Sylvain."

He has to look up. More than usual. Sylvain has managed to get even broader in the last year, not just around the chest area. His jawline is more prominent, and his voice deeper. If not for the shockingly bright red hair, Felix might not have recognized him.

"You didn't come out to meet us at the gate," says Sylvain, managing to make it sound like a statement of fact rather than an accusation. 

"I went hunting," says Felix, eyes darting behind his old friend.

He meets Ingrid's stricken face. She hasn't changed so much that he doesn't recognize her immediately, despite the fact that she's covered in gleaming white armor.

"What are you wearing?" asks Felix.

"I- I." She swallows. Loudly. "I'm sorry. You just look so much like. . ."

"I know," says Felix.

A strangled sob escapes Ingrid's throat. She whirls around so quickly that her long, blonde braid strikes Sylvain's shoulder, who sighs as she rushes away from them.

"You're the spitting image of him," says Sylvain.

Of Glenn. Felix knows. He has a mirror in his room.

"What the hell was she wearing?" asks Felix. 

"She's decided to become a knight, and my father accepted her as a squire," says Sylvain.

"Right, whatever." Felix’s eyes have dried up, though he can't say that the urge to cry has passed. Now Ingrid will get her fool head severed by a random hungry bandit, and people will say _she died a true knight_ solemnly. 

"Felix, wait!" Sylvain rushes down the hall after him, keeping up easily with his longer strides.

"Go. Away," Felix bites out, turning towards the stairs that lead to his room.

"I have a message from His Majesty," says Sylvain. 

"You can--" Felix stops, forces himself to take a deep breath. "Right. May I have it?"

If Rodrigue finds out that Felix has been blatantly ignoring letters from Dimitri for the better part of a year. . . Felix might find himself disowned before the day is over, assuming the shock doesn't kill his father. Sylvain passes him an envelope, which Felix takes while avoiding his gaze. Then he glares at Sylvain, seething because he just knows his cheeks are burning red even though he has done _nothing wrong_. Dimitri isn't the king yet, and even if he was, Felix wouldn't care.

"He's really sorry, you know," says Sylvain. "For whatever it was he did."

Felix's nostrils flare.

"He misses you," says Sylvain, with a serious look that does not suit him.

"He's the Crown Prince," says Felix. "There are dozens of butterflies buzzing about him, clamoring for his attention, all the time."

"But they're not you," says Sylvain.

"I'm sure he's relieved that his distant crybaby cousin is no longer his concern."

"Felix," says Sylvain, locking gazes with him. 

Felix refuses to look away, and curses his skin for being so pale that he turns red as a tomato following any strong emotion. Not that he _is_ feeling any strong emotion, just. . . Why isn't Sylvain trying to embarrass him with some dumb story about the latest lady he took to bed? 

"What?"

"Dimitri has always earnestly defended you and doted on you," says Sylvain. "You're his favorite, and everyone knows it."

"Oh, shut up!" Finally, Felix looks away. It's not at all how it is. Was. Just because Dimitri occasionally used Felix to play the gallant knight, it doesn't mean that Felix hasn't spent most of his life in the background, waiting for scraps of attention from his father, his brother, and yes, even Dimitri. 

"And if this is about what happened in Duscur. . . It wasn't his fault he survived, Felix."

"I know that," snaps Felix, turning on his heel. "I'm not a moron."

Felix doesn't even look at the letter until he's back in his room, so he doesn't notice that there's something besides paper inside the envelope. Felix runs his finger over it. Whatever it is, it's perfectly smooth and round, except for a single notch. If he didn't know better, Felix would say that Dimitri has sent him some kind of jewel. Or some equally stupid trinket. But why in Fodlan would Dimitri do such a stupid thing? It doesn't matter. With a pained grunt that, mercifully, no one is around to hear, Felix puts the unopened letter in his drawer. In the same spot where he's keeping the last five letters that Dimitri sent him.

The night goes on with Felix pacing around his room, gaze darting over to his drawer. He considers summoning a servant, but in the state he's in, it's likely that he'll yell like a madman because his bath hasn't been drawn yet. Which would be unfair, since the servants are undoubtedly busy dealing with their guests. The letter keeps hovering around the forefront of his mind, until he's glancing towards the drawer every other minute. 

"Fine, you win!" Felix tells no one in particular, then walks to the drawer.

He lays the six letters on his bed in the order he received them. They're all written on fine paper, the third thicker than all the others, and the fourth one had its wax seal placed off-center, as though it had been written in a hurry. Or because Dimitri is a clumsy oaf everywhere outside a battlefield. No need to spiral down a web of speculation about how the boar might be feeling. The fifth letter is the shortest. Felix had held it against the sunlight more than once and counted three single lines. Against his will, he'd read a few words. 

_Respect. Regret. Decision._

Felix had hidden the letter immediately, and challenged himself not to open it. He'd been thinking of it as a training challenge. Felix is nothing if not diligent and disciplined in regards to his training.

He decides that the new letter is different than all the others since Dimitri had one of his knights deliver it personally. And there's something inside besides paper. If it's something valuable, then Felix needs to know so he can throw it back at Dimitri with maximum disdain. These are all good reasons to open the envelope.

It is a gem. Perfectly smooth and spherical, a crystal entrapping thick, grey mist. Felix is no mage or holy man, but obvious magic enemates from the thing. The clasp is either pure silver or platinum. Felix hopes that it's silver if only because that would be cheaper, and _what is that stupid boar thinking_? He is going to kill the fool when he arrives, and then be tried and executed for regicide.

Belatedly, he remembers the stupid letter. Any hope that this is one of Sylvain's pranks dies when he recognizes Dimitri's blocky, inelegant handwriting. 

_Dear Felix,_

_I know I promised in my last letter that I would leave you in peace, but this Knowledge Gem reminded me of you so much that I could not resist sending it to you. I got it from a bandit--_

Felix frowns. That means he killed someone for it.

_\--and the royal mages tell me that whoever wears this will enjoy accelerated skill growth and mastery. _

_You have told me many times that you wish you were older so that you might be as skilled as_

Here, Dimitri blotted out a word that is obviously Glenn's name. Felix remembers all those silly conversations too.

_What I mean to say is, I want you to have this gem. You need not thank me for it, nor even acknowledge that I gave it to you. If it's not to your liking, then give it to someone else. Or throw it in the river. It's of no consequence to me._

_With--_

The beast crosses out several words before settling on _respect_, and signing off with his full name and title. 

Once, Dimitri had signed off all missives to Felix with a lazily scrawled _Dima_, the nickname Felix had bestowed upon him as a child because he could not manage the rough last syllable of Dimitri's name. 

The magic pulsing around the Knowledge Gem pulls Felix's attention away from the awful signature. He should throw the thing out his window, but it's a rare artefact that would assist his training. Also, he's not going to listen to that wild boar. 

Felix rides out to the nearest caravan and orders a platinum chain. It's an unexpected boon that a travelling jeweler already has one; Felix expected that a merchant would have to travel to Fhirdiad, if not Enbarr itself, to find such a frivolous thing. A sign that he should keep the gem, perhaps. Felix berates himself for the idiotic notion. He has already decided to keep it, and does not need to take comfort in stupid coincidences. 

Dimitri arrives two days later with the usual royal entourage, including his loyal dog from Duscur. Felix would have avoided the spectacle, but his father actually had the nerve to station a knight at his door the previous night. It's so ridiculous that Felix can't muster the energy to be upset about it. He's astride a warhorse beside Rodrigue as he welcomes the royal party, making sure to keep his facial expression as glacial as the most vicious mountain bordering Sreng. 

Considering how Dimitri beams when he spots Felix, like he can sense the Knowledge Gem pulsing over Felix's chest, Felix might have failed.


End file.
